Whining Their Way To Electoral Glory

The story so far - Barack Obama pens an op-ed in the New York Times giving his plan for Iraq and Afghanistan. John McCain offers a rebuttal that is one long "WAHHH but you want us to lose and you smell and have cooties and I am ROXXOR!!!!!ELEVEN!!" The New York Times, in a rare moment of editorial discretion, rejects it. And explained why:

Thank you for sending me Senator McCain’s essay.

I’d be very eager to publish the senator on the Op-Ed page.

However, I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written. I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft. Let me suggest an approach.

The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.

It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.

This is something that occurs on every op-ed in your local paper. It's called "what an editor does." It's also NYT policy to print rebuttals on the Letters to the Editor page and opinions on the opinions page.

The right has an old-fashioned freakout.

Now, the idea that the media gates are being blocked to St. Barbecue McCain is ridiculous enough to put this whole freak-out to rest. It's not that he really wants to appear in the New York Times - the same paper he and the conservative movement routinely deride on the campaign trail. It's that they want to discredit the media in general as being in league with Obama and dedicated to helping him win in November, and their spin is starting to work.

This is part and parcel of the strategy to work the refs, get favorable coverage and discredit and devalue facts from the news division. It's the Phil Jackson theory of politics.

Via slinkerwink, I'm sure the right sees the juxtaposition of these two photos as an example of this bias:





But what never gets mentioned is the substance of the two campaigns that are being run - Obama's is sharp while McCain's is slow. Obama is straightforward while McCain is cloying. Obama is sunny while McCain is negative. Why WOULDN'T they be treated differently?